ASCAP Refuses To Debate Lessig 183
An anonymous reader writes "Back in June ASCAP oddly declared war on free culture, specifically calling out Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge, making a number of false statements about all three. The war of words continued as the three groups responded politely, pointing out the errors in the statement from ASCAP's Paul Williams. Larry Lessig wrote a blog post where he asked Williams to debate these topics, saying that it might help if they could get away from making false statements. Williams has now publicly declined to debate saying that it's not worth his time, and once again attacking these groups for trying to 'silence' him. It's difficult to see how a request for a public discussion and debate is an attempt to silence, but that's ASCAP's position and they're sticking to it."
Re:Debates are almost worthless (Score:2, Interesting)
Arguments and legislation should be based on published literature and statistics, not on who is the better orator.
We would all like that to be true, but in the real world, statistics don't count for much when trying to pass legislation. Nor does oratory skill. They are useful to support a position but power does not react to statistics or oratory. Power reacts to power. Statistics and oratory can support power but they are not power in and of themselves.
The reason Williams can decline a debate is that ASCAP has a tremendous amount of power and Lessig has little, if any. ASCAP has nothing to lose by declining debate. Until Lessig (or someone else holding favorable views) can put an army of people in the room, including influential legislators, there's not much we're going to be able to do.
Unfortunately, geeks and nerds tend to not understand this fundamental political truth. It's not about what's objectively right. That has almost no worth in politics. It's about who you can influence.
There are other ways to build power than by raising boatloads of money, though money is necessary. The very first step is to convince ordinary people that your position is in their self-interest and is important enough to spend time and money on. That in itself takes a rather large amount of skill, time and patience.
Re:Debates are almost worthless (Score:3, Interesting)
In order to have a worthwhile debate you need to have a host who is interesting in the truth and has control over the microphones. The host asks each guest to state their overall position, with limited time. Then the host identifies and lists where each of the guests appear to be *agree*. The guests are given the opportunity to make objections to the host's interpretation of what the guests agree on, but he must cut off either guest if they go off-track and start talking about disagreement. Once agreement has been established, *then* the host can turn to disagreement. The host identifies the disagreement and presents the objection of one guest to the other, who is given an opportunity to respond to the objection, the other guest may then get an opportunity to rescind or defend their position, *then the host moves on* to the next objection. Some time later the host asks the guests if he missed anything, and they are each given a timed period to present any objections that have been missed. Perhaps another round of discussion on the missed objections occurs. Finally, the host offers a summary on what was discussed, what was agreed on, which positions were settled as misunderstandings or whatever, and finally the host makes a determination of which guest presented the best argument, scored the most points or persuaded the host the best.
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Re:Debates are almost worthless (Score:2, Interesting)
just like most doctors nowadays are proponents of evidence-based medicine
Were these the same doctors that were up in arms when a US council recommended women get fewer mammograms, after evidence showed that (even absent any cost argument!) the reduced frequency was just as effective at detecting breast cancer?
Putting a face on an organization... (Score:2, Interesting)
...isn't usually a problem; in fact it's usually a benefit. Maybe in other countries it is impossible to hate someone who never showed his face, but in the US it actually makes things easier. Whatever your political affiliation, one of the easiest and cheapest ways to disparage a group is to attach the words "big" or "faceless" to it. "Big" government, "faceless" corporations, "big" labor, etc. People don't trust you unless you can show them your face; that why for example BP was so eager to get a spokesman in front of cameras (too bad for them he made a douche of himself, but the point stands.)
The problem with the ASCAP/RIAA et al. is that they simply don't have anyone they can trot out in front of a camera without it looking like a South Park cartoon [southparkstudios.com]. "Look, there's Lars now. [...] This month he was looking to have a gold-plated shark tank bar installed right next to his pool, but thanks to people downloading his music for free, he must now wait a few months before he can afford it." Hollywood has spent decades highlighting the rich and glamorous lives that their stars lead, with huge houses, fast cars, and all of that; now they've got to try to work against all their own marketing to tell us that these same artists are starving and they have to put ordinary blue collar workers into debt for the rest of their lives to support them.
Re:Debates are almost worthless (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not entirely true. For example, I could say that it is illegal to smoke pot in the U.S. And that would be true until California takes a vote this November. Then, the truth will have changed; that statement is currently true, but no longer will be. Similarly, as this whole discussion is about copyright law, the law does, indeed, play a role, though it is unlikely that any change in the law would be sufficient to make ASCAP's statements in this matter even remotely true.
Either way, it's pretty clear that ASCAP's Paul Williams is either an idiot or a bald-faced liar, and no changes in copyright law will ever change that. Does anybody know if there's a mechanism for ASCAP members to make a motion of no confidence? I'd love to help start that process, but I'm not really familiar enough with ASCAP's governance to know where to begin.
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Re:Interesting worldview... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Idiot (Score:2, Interesting)
You're right, I don't know, but they will become irrelevant despite all of that.
I know that ASCAP is supposed to facilitate those things, but what they are doing right now doesn't make any sense.
Open Source doesn't take money away from anyone. It never has and never will. People who participate any sort of copyleft (or even copyfree) licensing do so WILLINGLY. By equating the EFF and others like them with copyright infringers using bittorrent to illegally trade in the work will backfire on them and cause them to become irrelevant. If they want to win some real points, especially amongst the intelligencia, their arguments need to be based in reality. Ad hominem and other such logical fallacies used to attack them WILL eventually backfire. They will marginalize themselves because no one will become/remain a member just due to the bad press.
I CopyFree [copyfree.org] license all my work using the OWL [apotheon.org] just because I think it's DUMB to restrict my work. If I can make money off of it, fine. Otherwise, it probably stunk in the first place and I need to move on to the next project.
How do I make a living? With a little work and ingenuity.
Re:Debates are almost worthless (Score:3, Interesting)
As a consumer, I want IP to exist solely for selfish reasons. Do you not agree?
You should really read some Lessig (http://www.free-culture.cc/) - the most restrictive IP laws may not be the ones that bring about the best results.
Re:Silence him? (Score:1, Interesting)
um... is it just me or does pronouncing the acronym result in calling the group "ass-cap"?
Re:Debates are almost worthless (Score:2, Interesting)